One Suspected Member of the Foreign Terrorist Organisation ‘Islamic State’ Arrested for War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity, Among Others

Year of issue 2024
Date 11.04.2024

Today (11 April 2024), the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office had agents of the North Rhine-Westphalian State Criminal Police Office arrest

the Syrian national Ossama A.

in Essen in execution of an arrest warrant of 28 March 2024 issued by the Investigating Judge at the Federal Court of Justice.

Ossama A. is strongly suspected of membership in a foreign terrorist organisation (section 129a para. 1 no. 1 of the German Criminal Code [StGB], section 129b para. 1 sentences 1 and 2 StGB). He is also accused of war crimes against property (section 9 of the German Code of Crimes against International Law [VStGB]), aiding and abetting war crimes against persons (section 8 para. 1 no. 4 VStGB, section 27 para. 1 StGB), crimes against humanity and aiding and abetting such crimes (section 7 para. 1 nos. 3, 6, 9, 10 VStGB, section 27 para. 1 StGB) as well as aiding and abetting genocide (section 6 para. 1 no. 3 VStGB, section 27 para. 1 StGB).

Essentially, the allegations are:

At least from the end of April 2011 onwards, the Syrian regime systematically resorted to brutal force against critics. The objective was to suppress the protest movement from early on and to intimidate the population. Early 2012, the tensions in Syria escalated into a civil war between, in particular, the Syrian armed forces and armed opposition groups, among them the foreign terrorist organisation ‘Islamic State’.

Ossama A. joined the ‘Islamic State’ as a member no later than in July 2014. He assumed a senior position in the local religious police force of the ‘Islamic State’ (Hisba) and played a crucial role in the forced appropriation of private homes in the Deir ez-Zor area as well as in the exploitation of pillaged furniture and other valuables. On at least 15 occasions, he, in concert with a unit he commanded, seized in particular buildings. They served the ‘Islamic State’ as means of accommodation for combatants, as office spaces or storage facilities and, in two cases, as prisons for abducted female Yazidis. The suspect was largely responsible for accommodating fighters. On some occasions, he stole furniture from seized houses. In seizing the two houses repurposed into prisons, Ossama A. supported the ‘Islamic State’ in the enslavement and sexual exploitation of Yazidi women and girls. This practice constituted an integral element in the organisation’s publicly pursued goal to annihilate the Yazidi religious community. The suspect was in possession of keys to one of the prisons and supplied the inmates with food.

Ossama A. was brought before the Investigating Judge at the Federal Court of Justice today who read out the arrest warrant to him and decided for pre-trial detention to be put into effect.